{"id":57276,"date":"2021-12-01T02:59:32","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T02:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/12\/01\/navy-wants-to-create-more-lethal-pilots-for-less-money-with-simulators\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:14:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:14:33","slug":"navy-wants-to-create-more-lethal-pilots-for-less-money-with-simulators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2021\/12\/01\/navy-wants-to-create-more-lethal-pilots-for-less-money-with-simulators\/","title":{"rendered":"US Navy wants to create more lethal pilots for less money with simulators"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The U.S. Navy hopes to train more competent aviators for less money, officials say, as they eye using simulators to speed the process of training the fundamentals and then focus live flying on the high-end tactics that will help them win against an adversary like China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rear Adm. John Meier, the commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, said Nov. 30 at the annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/digital-show-dailies\/itsec\/\">Interservice\/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference<\/a> that simulators from the classroom setting all the way to ones on deployed aircraft carriers at sea could help keep training costs down even as the naval aviation community seeks to grow more skilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe recognize that the cost to operate our business, the cost to train and develop a carrier air wing, is pretty high. And the cost per flight hour is pretty staggering, the cost to maintain our aircraft is staggering, and one of the areas that I\u2019ve got a laser dot on is, how can we reduce some of that flying hours and increase more on the simulation side?\u201d he said during a panel discussion with other Navy flag officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m not talking about taking a hatchet to [live flight hours], but we\u2019ve got to be able to shift a little bit of that. And if you think about the delta in the cost-per-hour between those two, and the high-end tactics you can do in that, that makes perfect sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meier said the newer type\/model\/series aircraft, including the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, rely more heavily on simulators in their training and readiness matrices. But older aircraft, including the Navy\u2019s F\/A-18E-F Super Hornet that still makes up the bulk of the fighter fleet, remain dependent on live flying hours to achieve various training and certification milestones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe current balance of flights to simulation today is heavily skewed in flights for most aircraft,\u201d Meier said. He said he wouldn\u2019t want to see simulator hours account for more than a quarter of training time, but there\u2019s still a lot of room to shift in that direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019d be happy to move the needle one flight, quite frankly. If we could take away one flight and say on all [type\/model\/series] that we\u2019re no longer flying that flight \u2026 and move that over to a simulation event, that would be a step in the right direction,\u201d he said, adding the savings would quickly add up despite upfront costs and contractor support costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meier told Defense News after the panel technology is advanced enough today that this shift could be made without sacrificing any quality in training. In fact, he said, he\u2019d like to see a lot of the more basic \u2014 but still required \u2014 training moved to simulators to free up live flying time and funding for practicing the high-end tactics key to a future conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are really enabling our pilots, strike fighter pilots in particular, but really how the air wing is employed, to focus more and more on high-end tactics and less on what I would refer to as the blocking and tackling, the fundamental type stuff. We want to get through that as quick as we can and spend the vast majority of our training on the high-end threat,\u201d he said in a brief interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even during deployments, he said, the air wing can shift its focus to these offensive tactics. In the past, four planes might have to fly in a training event: two to replicate an adversary force, which is less useful to those pilots, and two to rehearse actual U.S. Navy tactics. Now, through an \u201cinject-to-live\u201d capability that inserts simulated adversary contacts into the cockpit of a fighter jet, the Super Hornet fleet can preserve flight hours during deployments for real-world missions and for flights that increase lethality \u2014 not ones that support other pilots\u2019 training by serving as the adversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the panel, Meier used the \u201cRed Rippers\u201d of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 11 as an example of how simulators can create a demonstrable advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This squadron \u2014 which flies the two-seater F\/A-18F out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia and serves in Carrier Air Wing One with the carrier Harry S. Truman \u2014 was dominant during its recent Air Wing Fallon carrier air wing training event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meier said that, compared to other strike fighter squadrons, VFA-11 had a kill ratio 2.5-times higher than anyone else, meaning they were killing more enemy aircraft and being killed less often during training events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhat we found is that, pure and simple, the commanding officer and the training officer, the leadership they had for how they train to fight and win, really focused on utilizing the simulators to the maximum extent possible,\u201d Meier said, noting the time in the simulators was overseen by the training officer and designed to practice the highest-end tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s somewhat a cultural issue, but we\u2019re also trying to inculcate that now as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meier told Defense News he and Vice Adm. Kenneth Whitesell, the commander of Naval Air Forces and Naval Air Force Pacific, are looking at individual- and squadron-level training and readiness matrices on an annual basis and are in the midst of trying to insert more simulator training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"7360\" height=\"4912\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6554077.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-115301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6554077.jpg.jpg 7360w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6554077.jpg.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6554077.jpg.jpg?resize=768,513 768w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6554077.jpg.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6554077.jpg.jpg?resize=1536,1025 1536w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6554077.jpg.jpg?resize=2048,1367 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 7360px) 100vw, 7360px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ensign Martin Dubois, a student naval aviator assigned to the first Naval Aviation Next &#8211; Project Avenger class, conducts a virtual reality trainer flight at Training Air Wing 4, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, March 8, 2021. Project Avenger is a prototype primary flight training syllabus designed to develop student naval aviators to a greater level of proficiency in a shorter period of time. (Lt. Michelle Tucker\/US Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meier also addressed another effort, called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navytimes.com\/news\/your-navy\/2021\/05\/25\/navys-new-project-avenger-flight-training-program-aims-to-produce-stronger-aviators\/\">Naval Aviation Training Next<\/a>, which seeks to modernize how the Navy trains its newest aviators before they join fleet squadrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rear Adm. Robert Westendorff, chief of Naval Air Training, said during the same panel three pilot programs fall under this effort: Project Avenger, which kicked off in September 2020 and seeks to shorten the timeline for primary flight training for brand new aviators in the T-6 trainer; Project Hellcat, which swaps some early strike fighter maneuver training in the T-45 trainer for time in the cheaper T-6 trainer; and Project Corsair, which seeks to reduce the time spent in the T-45 before fighter pilots are ready to join a fleet squadron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Westendorff said the Navy got good at training skillsets applicable to the global war on terrorism, \u201cbut it doesn\u2019t translate well in many aspects to this near-peer threat that we\u2019ll have to deal with in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Naval Aviation Training Next uses simulator technology and a syllabus that allows students to go at their own pace to create more competent pilots that can join the fleet faster, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meier, for his part, said this effort was \u201cprobably the most innovative thing that I\u2019ve seen in the training business in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Westendorff said several classes have graduated from the Project Avenger course now and already \u201cwe\u2019ve had students that have blazed through primary flight training in weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the second class of the pilot program, the average student completed the primary flight training curriculum 20% faster than the legacy syllabus would have allowed, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s all about, in my mind, producing a higher competency aviator to win that next conflict,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we all know, less time spent in the training command, more time spent in the fleet learning that higher-level craft, so we\u2019re succeeding in that. And I think we can save a few dollars as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first class of Project Hellcat kicks off Dec. 6. The idea behind this effort is to take about 10 hours of early flight time for strike pilots, where they learn very basic dynamic maneuver concepts, and conduct that training in the T-6 instead of the T-45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI can give them about 10 hours in the T-6, which is less than a quarter of the cost of a flight hour in a T-45,\u201d Westendorff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The students would then progress to Project Corsair, which covers the 42-week strike fighter syllabus in the T-45 trainer. The first class in this pilot program is expected to begin early next year, likely in February \u2014 which means about a year from now Westendorff expects to be able to say definitively whether Naval Aviation Training Next is producing better new pilots for less time and money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cRight now, all indications are that I\u2019m really past the proof-of-concept phase for Project Avenger and I have data that it\u2019s successful. In about a year, year and a half, I\u2019ll have the data for the entire system from start to finish to ensure we\u2019re on the right track and we are in fact sending that higher-competency aviator to the fleet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Navy wants to create better pilots for less cost, relying on simulators for more basic-level training and preserving the expensive live-flight hours for high-end tactics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":115299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["your-military","news","left-column","home"],"primary_category":"your-military"},"7":{"categories":["your-navy","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters","left-column","home"],"primary_category":"your-navy"}}},"categories":[160,29,90,16,36,26,164],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3354],"class_list":["post-57276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-itsec","category-naval","category-newsletters","category-training-sim","category-training-simulation-report"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"JZRAJ6UMK5A6XJS3RIZMRV76MQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2021\/11\/30\/navy-wants-to-create-more-lethal-pilots-for-less-money-with-simulators\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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